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Historically, b2b marketers have always tried to keep a shadowy, artificial distance from consumer marketing. But today that gap (if there ever was one) is closing. B2b marketers realize that, in the end, they are selling to human beings. And the need to understand, communicate with, and thrill their most enthusiastic customers is becoming not only very real, but every company’s way to market.

B2b relationships have usually been built around three things, how to: save customers money, make them money, or strengthen their competitive ability. While those objectives have not altered, the context certainly has.

“The landscape of b2b has changed and continues to evolve,” says Keith Turco, president of Gyro New York, a b2b agency. “Social media is one of the reasons it’s changing, but human relevance has always been pertinent in the b2b space.”

Pertinent, but in the face of hard facts and features, the human factor historically has been unrecognized or misunderstood as soft marketing in the hard-nosed world of b2b.

In truth, the b2b audience is as influenced by peers and by human contact as consumer marketing. First-hand testimonials have always been a sought-after component of the b2b marketing mix: the eyes-forward-straight-into-the-lens testimonial—a b2b staple for decades, is no different than the consumer marketer’s ‘talking head’.

Trade shows and face-to-face meetings have also been desired connection points.

But what has truly changed in b2b is how the communications have flexed to match modern work styles.

“Your work life no longer a 9 to 5 role,” says Gyro’s Turco. “People take their work home: search the web for work on weekends, flip through b2b company pages on Facebook, we put b2b spots on the Discovery Channel, YouTube, blogs, hits, tweets. Social media is obviously playing a much larger role in the media mix.”

One of Gyro’s clients is Scotsman, a big ice machine company. Working on a client project, researchers randomly stumbled upon an enthusiastic Facebook community that loved to chew ice. In fact, they preferred to chew certain cubes from certain machines that—streak of coincidence—happened to be Scotsman machines.

Gyro built an event platform for Scotsman based around restaurant locations, based on client data on which restaurants had Scotsman machines. They created a branded ice truck and gave out samples. The event was so successful, they took it to Las Vegas food trade shows.

Gyro’s “Luv The Nug” campaign had personal relevance for customers and broke through the standard b2b clutter, beating sales forecasts by three or four times.